Call for 'Guiding Culture' Rekindles Political Debate in Germany

By ROGER COHEN

Published: November 5, 2000

BERLIN, Nov. 4—
A leading conservative politician has ignited a political storm by saying that the millions of foreigners in Germany must adopt a German ''Leitkultur,'' or guiding culture.

The statement by Friedrich Merz, a leader of the opposition Christian Democrat group in Parliament, was made as a contribution to a review of German immigration law. But it has opened a much wider discussion on the very nature of German nationhood a decade after unification.

The debate pits those like Mr. Merz, who seem determined to foster a resurgent German patriotism through an unapologetic defense of the national culture, against those like Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who see such ideas as an inflammatory departure from Germany's postwar embrace of a muted identity within a unifying Europe.

Throughout Western Europe, similar battles are being fought as the pressure to integrate in what may become a European superstate and accept a borderless future in a globalized world stirs patriotic reactions in defense of the nation state. Because of the sensitivity to any form of nationalism in Germany, the conflict here is particularly tense.

The very term Leitkultur, with its hint of some sort of German cultural supremacy, has awakened unhappy memories at a time when Germany is still unsure where the best balance lies between the assertiveness that is a natural outgrowth of its size and the modesty that is an inevitable outgrowth of its history.

''The term is disgusting,'' said Bela Anda, a spokesman for the Social Democratic chancellor, Gerhard Schroder. ''It is also menacing to immigrants.''

But the fact is that Mr. Merz appears to have struck a chord in a country where anxiety over immigration is widespread and impatience with the historical shame engendered by the Nazi years is increasingly common. The notion that it might now be reasonable to take pride in being German has become a theme of insistent debate.

Applauding Mr. Merz for starting a discussion over issues long taboo, the conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine noted, ''The unshakable belief that after Auschwitz there can be nothing specifically 'German' has affected whole generations.''

In an editorial, the influential newspaper continued: ''Anyone who calls for the preservation of Germany's cultural peculiarities, traditions and conventions (allegedly nonexistent) is lucky if he is denounced as no worse than a 'nationalist.' ''

Mr. Merz has been called that, as well as a fool and provocateur, since he first used the term Leitkultur in mid-October. In a bitter defense of his choice of words published last week in the daily Die Welt, he complained that ''no reproach from the well-known arsenal of political correctness in this country has been spared.''

For decades after the war, West Germans were taught that the only legitimate patriotism was reserved for the democratic values enshrined in the constitution of 1949, the German mark, and -- perhaps -- the German soccer team. Only as part of the European Union, and behind the shield of a large American presence in Europe, could any national interest be guardedly promoted.

But the removal of the constraints of the cold war, the growing distance from Hitler's war, and the addition to the population of 17 million East Germans raised on the official patriotism of having been the ''good Germans'' have made national self-effacement somewhat less natural and less politically compelling.

It is in this context that Mr. Merz's comment has caused such soul-searching. The mass-circulation Bild today described Leitkultur as an ''unspeakable word.'' Mr. Merz retorted that it means no more than insisting, for example, that learning German is essential for the integration of immigrants.

But many Germans seem sure it means more than that. Everybody appears to be asking, again, what it means to be a German.

Mr. Fischer, the foreign minister and a member of the environmentalist Green Party, said in an interview: ''In Germany, you wave the flag and at a certain point you arrive at the remembrance of Auschwitz. You try to be a patriot here, you love your country, you accept the heritage, and then you discover you cannot love the heritage. So it is always a broken patriotism born of a broken history.''

He continued: ''The problem is some Christian Democrats like Mr. Merz are still living in the 19th century, still believing in a German nationhood defined by blood, still resisting an immigrant culture when the fact is we have to open up for economic reasons. This idea of 'Leitkultur' today, in a post-national Europe, is completely crazy.''

But of course not every German, or every Frenchman or Englishman for that matter, is convinced that Europe is or will be ''post-national.'' It seems evident that Mr. Merz's statement was part of an aggressive new attempt by the Christian Democratic party to follow the example of other conservative parties in Europe and use issues of identity and immigration as part of its platform.

By taking the Social Democrats toward the center, and turning them into a party that enjoys wide support from German business, Mr. Schrod er has deprived the Christian Democrats of one of their most important traditional bastions.

A new party definition is therefore needed. The defense of German national identity against multiculturalism, of a new patriotism against complete absorption in a borderless Europe, offers electoral potential.

The planned expansion of the European Union to include neighboring Poland has fueled German fears of a vast influx of immigrants seeking jobs in country where 7.3 million foreigners already live and over 9 percent of the population is unemployed.

But the Christian Democrats will have to be careful not to alienate German business further. The Federation of German Employers said this week that Germany needs 1.5 million skilled workers from abroad to fill jobs in high-tech and engineering fields, and business leaders are urging the government to ease immigration law that now makes it difficult for foreigners to stay in the country as anything but ''asylum seekers.''

Mr. Merz has been at pains to explain that his choice of words was not meant to carry anti-foreigner overtones. Rather, he has insisted, that acceptance of a ''guiding German culture'' merely meant following the constitution and broadly accepting such national values as the emancipation of women.

Still, Angela Merkel, his party leader, has been among those plainly troubled. The Leitkultur furor appeared to reach its awkward culmination this week when the weekly Der Spiegel asked Ms. Merkel to free-associate from the word ''Germany.''

The flag, she ventured. The national anthem. That sense of home conjured by the emotive word Heimat. The constitution and, yes, certain landscapes. ''For example,'' she explained, ''when I'm in Russia and I see birch woods, I know that what I'm seeing is no German landscape.''